What qualities do you most want your team members to bring to a given project? Integrity, initiative, creativity, task orientation, persistence, clarity, co-operation? Each of us has the potential to develop these qualities and more, but we have probably learned to use some of them more than others. Learning to access and express any chosen quality or attribute is one kind of learning goal that anyone can set.
This requires more than just information, it requires comprehension of all the components of a particular subject or system and the relationships between these components. If we had a better understanding, would that make success easier or more likely? Developing a fuller understanding of roles and missions will increase engagement, motivation and performance.
Expertise (know-how or skill) and can be technical or non-technical. Understanding what skills our people already possess and identifying what skills they need to improve performance, is key to future business success. We also need to understand how best to develop these skills either through on the job experience or classroom training
This is a distinct kind of thinking which relies on our ability to step back from the trees and see the forest. It is the ability to lift one’s thinking above short-term goals and focus on long-range objectives. Nowadays strategic thinking is a critical skill for everyone in your organisation. This step reminds us to ask ourselves, do you actually have a strategic perspective or merely a tactical view?
All work is done in time and is related to time. Learning this relationship is critical to successful productivity. The greatest strategies and the best experts have failed on occasion because of their inability to come to terms with this simple fact. Do we complete our work on time? Are we aware of the time required to complete all the tasks on the to-do-list? Are we constantly behind the timelines? Do we procrastinate? We may want to consider setting a learning goal around the relationship between time, task and priorities.